Antonio Tabucchi - Little misunderstandings of no importance - stories

On Saturday evening Uncle Tullio took us to the Bathhouse. Son of Tarzan was no longer playing; there was only a film we couldn’t see because minors weren’t allowed, but we had a fine walk, all the finer because Clelia had consented to come along. Aunt Esther was radiant, you could read it on her face. We stayed late so as to hear the band. Aunt Esther ordered a fancy ice cream and Clelia and I sat among the potted palms, listening to Mamma solo per te la mia canzone vola and picking up the caps from bottles of Recoaro, which bore the same design as that on the T-shirts worn at championship soccer matches. Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio danced on the platform bordered with potted palms and then we went home by the shore road. It was a beautiful evening and the tree-lined road was quiet and cool. Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio walked briskly, arm in arm, and Clelia hummed as if she were happy. I felt as if we were back in the summers that had gone before, when everything was yet to happen. I wanted to hug my aunt and uncle or write to my father not to come for me, to pay no heed to my wish to see him arrive in a red car, because I was content with things the way they were. But Clelia tugged at my sleeve and said: It’ll happen tomorrow, you’ll see.

But on the morrow nothing happened. The morning was superb and we went to the nine o’clock Mass so as to avoid the noonday heat. Aunt Esther had a headache — because of the follies of the night before, she said contritely — but her eyes were shining with joy. Flora had made a fish chowder and the house was filled with an appetizing smell. Cece was convalescing in princely style in his basket and Flora was thrilled because there was a film at the Don Bosco with her favourite actress, Yvonne Sanson. Sunday dinner was a better occasion than any in a long time, filled with laughing and chatter. Then Aunt Esther went to take her nap, saying we’d meet again at teatime. Uncle Tullio had something to do in the garage; if I wanted to go with him he’d show me how to take the distributor apart. I shot a glance at Clelia, but I couldn’t make out if there was any danger involved. I liked the idea of fooling around with the distributor, but I didn’t want to cause Clelia any worry and so I said yes, I’d be glad to serve as assistant mechanic, but not for too long, because Clelia and I were reading a very exciting book, which we wanted to finish. As I said these words I broke out into perspiration. But Uncle Tullio didn’t notice, he was pleased with the way the day was going. In the garage he put on a pair of rubber gloves so as not to dirty his hands and opened up the hood. Here’s the engine block, here’s the dynamo, here’s the fan, there are the spark plugs… give me the toolbox, it’s on the workbench over there to the right. To take apart the distributor all you do is press on the two springs, then use the screwdriver to loosen these two screws, that’s it, very good, just be careful not to pull too hard so you won’t snap the wires. It was a fine car, not brand-new like my father’s Aprilia, but nothing to turn up your nose at; it could get up to a hundred and ten kilometers an hour. I worked until four o’clock, when I went into the house, leaving Uncle Tullio with his head still buried in the engine. Flora was probably sleeping in the deck chair on the back porch; she’d be going to see the film that evening and she wouldn’t want to doze off in the middle. Cece was lying under the small sofa in the entrance hall, sticking his head out every once in a while. I tiptoed upstairs and knocked softly at Clelia’s door. Everything’s going right, she said, with an incomprehensible gesture, he suspects nothing, it seems to me, what do you think? I said it seemed to me, too, that he suspected nothing, but wouldn’t it be wise to think twice about it? Uncle Tullio was such a good fellow, and our game was turning into something… something evil; she’d have to forgive the word, but that was what I honestly thought. Clelia looked at me in silence; the house was silent and even the usual noises from the shore were lacking. I wished that someone, anyone, would give signs of life — Aunt Esther, Flora, Cece — but there wasn’t a sound and I was afraid even to breathe. Because now there was no way of turning back, everything was ready, and only an hour was left before the appointed time; the hands of the clock in the entrance hall were ticking away, inexorably. Then I said: I’ll go down. But an indeterminate time had gone by when I said it; I was sitting on the rug near the half-open window and I had dreamed — or was dreaming — my father was driving along the shore in a red car and smiling at me. He was smiling at the wind, but the smile was meant for me and I was sitting there, waiting, and at the same time I saw him and waved my hand to tell him to stop. Then Clelia touched my shoulder and said let’s go, and I followed her down the stairs as if I were somewhere else. In the dining room Flora had set the table for tea, so quietly that no one could hear; there were the teapot, the pitcher of lemonade, the toast and biscuits. Clelia sat down and I followed her example; Flora arrived promptly and said that the grown-ups would be there in a minute and we could begin. Uncle Tullio came in from the garden and Flora went upstairs to call Aunt Esther. She knocked at the door on the balcony and said: Signora, tea is ready. I was just starting to butter a piece of toast when Flora cried out. She was at the doorway of Aunt Esther’s room, holding one hand over her mouth as if to prevent herself from crying out again, but another shrill, choked moan of horror and despair broke out of her throat. Clelia got up, overturning a cup of tea, and started to run towards the stairs, but Uncle Tullio prevented her. He, too, had got up and was looking with stupor at Flora, all the time holding Clelia close to him as if to protect her. I saw that she had taken off her glasses and her eye was rolling dizzily. She looked at me in a terrible manner, with an expression of terror and nausea and also of bewilderment on her face, as if she were silently begging for my help. But how could I help her, what could I do? Write to my father? I would have done that, with all my heart, but my father wasn’t like Constantine Dragases. From where he was he couldn’t send me even a facsimile of his feet to meet my memories halfway.

Amelia looked at the light veil of mist, descending in the distance, over the roof of the house, and thought: it’s late, we’ve got to hurry. The path was steep and winding, paved with wide strips of granite; in the evening dampness it was like a petrified stream. There were clumps of rosemary and sage on either side; the air was cool and intensely fragrant and the hillside was carpeted with yellow splotches. October’s here again, thought Amelia; perhaps tomorrow we’ll have our first day of rain. Amelia always talked to herself in the first person plural; it was a habit she’d had for years, and if she had stopped to reflect, she wouldn’t have been able to say when it had begun. She had lingered longer than she should at the organ and this gave her a twinge of worry. But it was irresistible, so much did she enjoy practising Pergolesi in the deserted church. Vespers were over, the little old women had drifted away, and the priest always let her be the one to finally shut the small side door, which closed with a click behind her. In the adjacent rectory the windows were already lit up; over the countryside the light had taken on the deepening blue colour of approaching night. We played much too well, Amelia said to herself, and quickened her steps.

From the churchyard she could see nothing of her house but the roof and the top-floor windows. The vine that climbed its twisting way up to the window sills was already half bare in preparation for the autumn, and there was a dim light in Guido’s window from the shaded lamp on the bedside table. Beside the brass lamp, on the yellowed lace cloth, there were a Dante with a gilt binding like that of a Book of Hours, a crystal bottle marked off to indicate the dose of medicine for minor crises, an ivory box containing a mother-of-pearl rosary and a horn of red coral. As Amelia walked she reviewed these objects in her mind with the total recall born of long acquaintance with the detailed topography of a given room. A walnut cabinet occupied the far wall. In it her mother had kept the household linens and Amelia still used it for the heavy, yellowed sheets which had enveloped the sleep of preceding generations. Once upon a time the cabinet had had a key that stood out, for its large size, among the bunch hung from a nail in the wardrobe, with tags specifying, in brown ink, pantry, cupboard, clothes closet, storage room. To the right of the cabinet there was a small, marble-topped table where, when he was well enough to get up, Guido had sat to write, looking out of the window at the treetops and the slope of the hill. In a folding chessboard, in the right-hand drawer, Guido kept a diary, which, for years, Amelia had read every morning, comparing her impressions of the day before with those of her brother. She thought how bogus all writing really was — the implacable tyranny of circumscribing words, of verbs and adjectives that imprison things, hardening them into a glassy fixity, like a dragonfly caught for centuries in a rock, which keeps the appearance of a dragonfly but is one no longer. Such is writing, with its capacity to pin down the present and the recent past and distance them, by centuries, from us. But things are fuzzy-edged, thought Amelia; they are alive because they are fuzzy-edged, without borders, and do not let themselves be imprisoned by words.